


The Snakes He Freed

by AlbionRaine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Snakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 01:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16007852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlbionRaine/pseuds/AlbionRaine
Summary: If you’d asked Harry what he saw himself doing with his life even a short few months ago, sitting in a shop in Knockturn Alley surrounded by a few dozen snakes would not have been his first guess. But, he thought ruefully, he really wouldn’t trade it for anything.





	The Snakes He Freed

After the war was over, and everything had returned to normal (That’s what this was right? Normal. Better.), Harry found he couldn’t bear to stay in England. There were too many memories, too many missing friends, and far too many reporters. He had to get out, to leave, if only for a time. So he found himself travelling. Didn’t tell anyone where he was going, just took off one day.

Which was how he came to find himself, unread map in hand, wandering aimlessly through a muggle zoo. Occasionally he stopped to watch an animal for a few minutes, before he continued on his way.

It was probably inevitable (or maybe it was fate, because what in his life wasn’t affected by fate?), that after he watched the lions for a while, the very next enclosure he encountered was the snakes.

Harry lent against the wall opposite the glass of the enclosure and watched. But the longer he watched, the more concerned he became. Because while the lions had appeared to be content, if a little bored, the snakes seemed to exude discomfort, and a desire to be anywhere else.

Pushing himself off the wall, Harry cast muffliato and lent his head against the glass separating zoo visitors from the snakes, he didn’t really care what the muggles passing through thought of him, just so long as they couldn’t hear him. He didn’t even know if he could still speak Parseltongue, given that he was no longer a horcrux, but he felt he had to try.

“How long have you been here?” he asked, leaning in closer to the glass, as if that would make him more likely to be understood.  
The snake closest to him raised its head, startled, “You’re a speaker”  
“I am.” Harry replied with a warm smile.  
“What do you want?” the snake asked, its voice dripping with suspicion and its body swaying in warning, “Speakers always want something.”  
Harry blinked, taken aback, “I just wanted to ask if you were happy.”

This statement seemed to calm the snake a little, and Harry was able to hold a conversation with it. The other three snakes in the enclosure started talking after a while too, and Harry learnt that they had all been hatched in captivity, and that all of them hated the zoo with every fibre of their being. Without a second thought, Harry asked if they wanted to leave the zoo and come live with him.

That night, after the zoo had closed, Harry snuck back in under his invisibility cloak and broke the snakes out. He took them all to Grimmauld Place, and sent an owl to Hagrid asking if he had any advice on keeping snakes. When he responded that no, sorry, he didn’t know anything about snakes, Harry scoured libraries both magical and muggle for any reference books he could find.  
Although the snakes informed him that most of it was hogwash anyway.

The snakes, as it turned out, made for excellent companions. They seemed to have an instinct for when Harry needed to be left alone, and when their company would be appreciated. Sometimes, he would wake from nightmares, drenched in sweat, with a comforting weight across his chest, reminding him that whatever had happened, it was in the past now. He was safe.

Every couple of weeks, when the drudgery of London (not to mention the insistence of certain reporters) became too much for him, Harry would go travelling again. Which would find him at another muggle zoo, talking to the snakes, asking if they were happy. If they wanted to stay, return to the wild, or perhaps come live with him.

A few months later, Harry got an unexpected floo call from an extremely worked up Hagrid.  
“Harry! I need your help! I’d’a taken the poor thing in myself, but with my, ah, history, I didn’t think that’d be a good idea,” Hagrid said, perhaps a trifle louder than was necessary, and without pausing for breath, “But you sent that owl a while back, so I thought…”  
Harry smiled good naturedly at his friend, “Of course I’ll help, just slow down a bit,” he said with a laugh, “And maybe start from the beginning, yeah?”  
Harry listened with a bemused smile as Hagrid explained the latest Hogwarts hijinks, which had included the rather unfortunate combination of a third year’s pet toad, and an egg that had been pilfered from the kitchens.  
By the end of it, all Harry could think was that Grimmauld Place was beginning to feel a bit small, and perhaps he should look into somewhere new.

Which was how Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, Saviour of the Wizarding World, and all round Hero, came to own and run a sanctuary for snakes in the heart of Knockturn Alley (no one anywhere reputable had wanted to be associated with snakes, sorry Mr Potter sir), with a baby basilisk wearing the most bizarrely adorable goggles to stop it from petrifying anyone (or worse), guarding the door.

If you’d asked Harry what he saw himself doing with his life even a short few months ago, sitting in a shop in Knockturn Alley surrounded by a few dozen snakes would not have been his first guess. But, he thought ruefully, he really wouldn’t trade it for anything.

And at least the press left him alone now.


End file.
